Monday, April 7, 2014

New symbol for the Cyanogen operating system

CyanogenMod is an open source operating system for mobile phones, derived from the Android OS. Last week, the company behind it, Cyanogen Inc, unveiled a new corporate identity.

It introduces a new symbol built on hexagons with a nice interplay between figure and whitespace. A smaller solid hexagon in the middle represents the user, it is enclosed by a C for the community and a froward-pointing arrow. The little robot icon for the previous logo will survive as a sort of mascot, named Cid.

Previous logo.

From a blog post about the rebrand:

ChoiceThe concept of choice has been the core of CyanogenMod and the founding of Cyanogen Inc. Choice means personalizing your device to your use cases and tastes. Choice means exercising control over your data and security. Choice means the freedom to select your OS on your mobile devices, and modify it as you see fit. These are the hallmarks of CyanogenMod, and they will be ever present in the company’s mission.A Deeper MeaningThe center displays the importance of the user – the focus of the brand. The ‘C’ brings together the company and the community – users, developers, contributors and fans. Working together we have provided a safe and secure environment for the user; one free of walls of restrictions. The arrow points forward – driving all things forward to bigger and better things.The overall brand invokes the concept of tools and building; the tightening of screws as you put together a project. The screws also signal a project in motion – the settings you are presented – the choices you make in using your phone probably differ from the choice of your nearest neighbor.Community“What about Cid?”. Cid lives on stronger than ever. He brings a playful, and sometimes mischievous, nature to the open source project and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Cid belongs to the community, he is yours, not the company’s.